Jere Hester has advice for SiriusXM's Howard Stern:
...Stern, who likes to talk, might want to give Clear Channel a listen: a return to the terrestrial airwaves, for all his past, bitter battles with the FCC, could be good for radio, fans – and for him.
Stern would get to re-establish himself as a major pop-cultural force – reclaiming a mass audience as he secures and builds upon his legacy as a maverick who changed radio and comedy.
More fans would get to hear him. There are a lot of great things about satellite radio: channels dedicated to artists and genres, a lack of commercials and quality sound. But while Stern boosted subscriber rolls, a lot of folks still aren’t willing to pay for radio, especially with iPods and Internet services like Pandora providing the soundtrack to many lives.
Commercial radio, meanwhile, could use the breath of funny, fiery air. Talk radio these days is generally a mix of lame Stern imitators and political commentators pandering to listeners' worst instincts.
How many times can these people write the same stupid piece?
Entertainment and media writers have been floating this "Howard Stern Terrestrial Comeback" story since the fourth month he was on Sirius in 2006. This has been refuted several times in the last four years, but the geniuses in media continue to persist and make suggestions and market pitches, as if they actually know the impact beyond the desk where they type this stupidity up.
This recent effort to draft Stern back to terrestrial radio stemmed from one offhand comment from an on-air conversation last Thursday, and a subsequent piece from FMQB the next day started the trial balloon. All of a sudden, there's rumors flying around, and columnists making suggestions as if they were Stern's agent, Don Buchwald. At this point, in my view, if you've been floating the same lead balloon for years, and it keeps crashing into the ground, you should quit trying. From what anyone knows, in January 2011, Stern won't be on the radio at all. But I bet you this: 4 months into Howard's retirement, some clown will float a story about his return to terrestrial radio, and 118 media sources will chomp at the bit.
One more note, Jere: people are diversifying in their music and content delivery choices. What, they aren't willing to "pay for radio", but they'll buy a $200 iPod Touch, and pay up to $15 per download to load it with content? People are buying an electronic tablet device just so they can read books! Most people won't pay for radio, but that does not mean that people aren't spending that money elsewhere, or that the default option would be to sit and listen to free radio. They're all over the place. I've owned at least four portable music devices since December 2004, and been paying for radio since then also.
Furthermore, if radio stations were interested in finding talented people--there's plenty of them out there that don't have jobs, while Big Radio signs all sorts of comedians, singers, rappers, and other hacks to do every other show in all timeslots--there wouldn't be this desperate clamoring for a Stern comeback...especially from you, Jere.
No comments:
Post a Comment